


my body on the waves

by liesmyth



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drowning, F/F, Knives, Pirate King Elizabeth Swann, Quynh | Noriko-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26363344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth
Summary: “Yer Majesty,” the pirate says, “I think we fished out a siren.”
Relationships: Elizabeth Swann/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 35
Kudos: 188
Collections: We Die Like Fen 4: We Lived to Die Afen





	my body on the waves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



> Thanks to Prinz for all the encouragement with this!

Quynh rises from the depths like the Leviathan emerging from the waves, a ravenous sea monster come to strike fear in the hearts of men. 

At least, that is how she feels. In truth she probably looks like a half-drowned rat, climbing up the ship’s net with all the strength that’s left in her. It's not much, but it’ll do. 

For the first time since she fought her way back to the surface, luck had been on her side. She screamed her throat raw, arms flailing, and swam with all her might under the faraway sun and the distant white clouds. When someone on the ship had hailed her back she was so relieved she might have cried – she _did_ cry as she swam those last few strokes to the ship’s bow, tears mingling with the saltwater irritating her eyes, her throat on fire as it had been since she was first thrown into the ocean.

Quynh climbs her way over the bulwark. Her legs are unsteady, unused as they are to holding up her own weight on land. Her muscles shake and her head feels dizzy from the sun and the thirst, and she realises for the first time how much her hair has grown, long enough to envelop her entire body and spill to the deck like a trail of seaweeds. She’s naked and the sanded wood is nearly dry against her skin, no water at all over her mouth and nose, and it’s marvellous. She chokes greedily on lungfuls of brackish air and stands her ground even as her knees buckle, blinking off the sun in her eyes.

The deck is utterly silent. 

Then someone says, “Yer Majesty, I think we fished out a siren.”

Quynh laughs. She laughs and laughs as her legs finally give out and then she’s on her hands and knees on the deck, rough under her palms and so wonderfully solid. Her head is spinning and she’s crying and she doesn’t know where she is or how long it’s been, but it feels glorious to be truly alive again.

She guzzles down the water they give her, blissfully sweet, and eats her fill until her belly hurts and yet she’s still hungry. She feels feverish with it, a furious, vengeful crave, like saltwater itching through her veins. She’s given a robe that belongs to the captain to cover herself, and she can’t stop stroking the soft cotton cloth, relishing the sensation of it. She’s in the captain’s own cabin with the captain herself, who has chestnut hair tied back into a braid and a sword at her hip that’s long and more slender than the heavy longswords she’s used to.

“My crew are calling you a creature of the sea,” says the captain, arching her brows as she looks Quynh up and down. Quynh stares back just as openly, noting the captain’s eyes, keen and bright, her porcelain skin and the sharp line of her jaw. “You look human to me, and my men are easily impressed, but we found you naked at sea. I bet there’s a story there.”

Quynh likes her smooth voice, the confident way she carries herself. She considers half a dozen lies she could tell and then discards them all. There are risks in revealing herself when they’re still so far out from the shore, but she’s sitting with her back to the wall and she’s confident that she could overcome the captain if it came down to it. Besides, there’s a certain thrill in risking it all to impress a pretty woman.

She says, “I have a story, if you’re ready to hear it.”

“Try me.”

Quynh smiles at her. “Do you have a knife?”

She slits her own as the captain watches on and savours the wonder in her eyes as the skin reknits itself. A red stripe of blood is left on unblemished skin and Quynh wipes it off carelessly with her thumb.

She explains some of it, the bare bones. Then she meets the captain’s eyes again. “Do you understand?”

“Maybe.” And then, “So, they threw you off the coast of England. We’re pretty far out. How long ago was that?”

“What year is it?” Quynh asks, and that’s when it seems to sink in the captain’s mind – the breadth of what Quynh’s been saying, the length of the life she’s lived, the lifetimes she’s spent under the ocean.

“In an _iron cage_? How did you–”

“Iron rusts.”

There’s a long pause as the captain considers it. Quynh remembers how it felt, to sink into the depths. She drowned, again and again, icy mouthfuls seeping into her lungs, and the only thing that kept her tethered to sanity was the thought that no man-made cage could trap her forever. And then, one day, the metal gave out; Quynh kicked it open, half-feral and bleeding, and found that the ocean currents held her down with far more vicious strength than the iron ever did. 

It must have been decades before she made it out to the surface, half a world away.

There’s an impressed gleam in the captain’s hand as she slowly holds out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Elizabeth Swann,” she says. “Pirate King of the Brethren Court.”

It takes them a week to make land. In that time, Quynh learns that nearly two centuries have passed; nations rose and fell and wars were fought, but life goes on as it always does. The more accustomed she becomes to living again the more she misses Andromache, longing and resentment cutting into her like a blade.

To chase it away, she makes herself useful. There’s always work to be done on a ship, so she cuts most of her hair and finds proper clothes and gets on with it, even if the crew are as intimidated by her as they were on that first day. Quynh can’t deny she likes that, a bit, but she likes working with her hands too, seeing to the sails and the pumps, sewing and tying knots. From the height of the mast the ocean looks almost flat, shimmering and peaceful-green, nothing like the pitch-black of the abysses. 

She relearns the familiar weight of a blade in her hands, and practices using a pistol. She learns the names of the men of the crew and how to play their games of cards, and that there are more incredible things than she’d thought possible in her long life.

“The King’s husband, he cannot die,” the boatswain confesses in a whisper, and there Quynh learns of the Flying Dutchman and her crew, and how there are more immortals out there in the high seas. She also learns that Elizabeth is married.

“His name’s Will,” Elizabeth says, over a bottle of rum. Sometimes they take their meals together in Elizabeth’s cabin, and what started as an exchange of information has evolved into easy companionship. The King’s voice is light as she says, “I haven’t seen in him over two years. His mistress is the sea, and she’s a cruel one to keep satisfied.”

She says it so matter-of-factly, Quynh can’t decide if she’s saddened or not. 

She takes a swing from the bottle. “My companion, her name is Andromache. We were separated when I was taken. We’ll meet again when the time is right.”

When Elizabeth smiles, it lits up her whole face. 

“I’ll drink to that!” 

And so they do, and soon enough the moodiness in the air gives way to easy companionship, and Elizabeth’s cheeks looks pleasantly flushed in the warmth of the small cabin. Her skin is soft and the cotton of her shirt smells like smoke and the sea air, and she flushes beautifully as Quynh presses her mouth down her body and then slides up to kiss her lips again.

The next day, they make port in Tortuga. The men laugh and slap each other on the shoulders, grinning and bragging of all the women they’re going to get with their new pay. Quynh watches them stride boisterously down the docks, followed by the first mate’s voice admonishing that they’d better be back on time in two days _or else_. It’s evening, and the breeze is gentle over her face.

“Are you going to leave us?”

She turns to find Elizabeth coming behind her on the deck with her hands clasped behind her back, the King surveying her domain. “From here you can find passage to any of the major ports of the Caribbean, or as far north as Lousiana. If you wish to return to Europe–”

“I don’t think the time’s right for that.” She thinks she’s too raw, still, to go look for Andromache now. “Besides, I wouldn’t know where to begin looking. Here’s as good as any. And I want to stay,” she adds, looking Elizabeth in the eyes. “If you’ll have me. If half the stories your crew told me are true, sailing with you is going to be an adventure.”

Elizabeth grins, bright and huge. “You bet,” she says, and her hand brushes Quynh’s as they stand on the deck, watching the sun set.


End file.
